Learn to control money but do not allow it to control you

savingwannabe

Have a safe trip Firewalker.

greenbee

Firewalker wrote: »

Greenbee, I am feeling torn between scolding you (you know well how I feel about displacement despite doing it myself) and feeling glad to have you here. Tim Ferriss would have said - hope you fast read my diary.

On a more serious note, get on with the paper - do it only when you are inspired and be inspired every day at certain time (and for about three hour a day).

Firewalker

I have three hours a day set aside for inspiration... however, I'm beginning to feel that they are the wrong three hours! I suspect that what I need to do is get running to remove the mental blockages - this has worked very well in the past, but I've let running go to the bottom of the list for a while and you know how much fun starting again is!

The miserable weather today hasn't helped me to get off to a good start, but I am determined to get this month's papers out to review this week, as the delay means I'm already behind for next month... and I'm in danger of it having an domino effect!

Have a safe trip home and enjoy the reunion with your family...

(oh... and on the assets and liabilities thing... I'm looking forward to reading it as I spent my last trip trying to explain the difference between an asset and a liability in my own field to audiences all over europe with some modest success but after doing the same presentation day after day, I'm bored with it... so I'll be looking for ideas as to how to get the message across... I might share some of this over on the other side as you may find the misunderstanding I'm trying to resolve helpful, or even interesting )

I might also pick your brains about things to do in Oslo sometime - I'm off there next month and got the dates wrong when booking flights so we have an extra (and currently free!) day there!

Firewalker

What a trip this was! Got to the Airport in time, all was working like clockwork. So there I was thinking that this was a really productive, opportunities opening and pleasant trip – hard to beat this combination, really. Dropped my bag and went through passport control. Then looked and noticed that instead of 16.30 my flight was put back to 17.30; shortly after it became 18.15; next it was 1.00. All passengers were at the gate; a young woman was sent to tell us what is happening. Fascinating how people react to such events.

There was the intense young man who got very upset, kept swearing but his aggression was directed towards himself. There was the middle aged guy who became confrontational and, well, a bit obnoxious. There were the cynics whose mantra for the evening was: ‘EasyJet is great when it works but total !!!! when it doesn’t.’ And there was the woman who was supposed to cope with this mess and face about 100 angry, upset and tired people but did not have enough information. All they told her was that she should be firm – and she was. But the colour kept rising – starting from her neck, her face...by the end of it she was as red as a very ripe tomato.

I looked around and spotted two people who were standing there; their body language told me about acceptance without resignation, about determination without aggression. So I looked at them a said: ‘I think that we should all go and have a drink.’ And we did – three more people joined in. It will be an exaggeration to claim that we had great time but it was interesting, and we passed the time as well we could. Until our plane took off at 2.33 this morning.

I decided to rest today. But all that happened last night made me think again about opportunities and how much depends on how we see events. Two years ago I would have been in much worse shape because I would have seen last night as a mighty !!!!-up specially intended for me. I would have spent the time miserable, on my own, my blood pressure going up...Last night I saw what happened as an opportunity – to meet different people, to talk to them, to make them also feel that little bit better about the whole thing. I brought together six strangers who offered each other the support they needed. One of the strangers was four months pregnant with twins...

Are events like possessions? Can all events be platforms for negative or positive experience depending on what we decide to make of them?

Firewalker

Cheery_Daff

Absolutely events can be platforms for negative or positive experience! Well done you for dealing with it so well. Glad you're home safe. x

Memory_Girl

Who is this calm, accepting and serene young lady?

Yup!!! Its you love:T

It's funny how the lessons find us, isn't it?

MG

Karmacat

Wow, FW, how brilliant. I love how you spotted out the first few people: "acceptance without resignation". I *love* that phrase!

As to all events being platforms for negative or positive ... as a psychotherapist, and bearing in mind recent bereavements in my own family, I would only give a qualified "yes" .... if anyone immediately feels positive about a loved one dying, or about abuse of some sort, then to me thats certainly not a genuine positivity, its a coping mechanism, and would be treated by me as such - maybe necessary in the short or even medium term, but not a longlasting state of being. Longer term ... yes. A death in the family has meant I am much closer to a family member .... someone who works through a trauma comes out the other end much more whole, and much more content ... these things can become positive in that sense, yes.

Hope that isn't getting too deep ....

Firewalker

Karmacat wrote: »

Hope that isn't getting too deep ....

No KC, it is just right. In fact thank you for introducing a time dimension - it is not only that events can be platforms for positive or negative, but there can be a sequence - grief first and after that something can blossom. Imteresting...

Firewalker

Firewalker

I am sitting here and I am not able or willing to do anything – no writing, no thinking, no cleaning and organising the house. I am just feeling absolutely washed out with no energy at all. Am I ill? Or am I just really tired? It may be that Tim is right again by claiming that both interest and energy are cyclical – so we cannot hope to work or live full on all the time, or to be interested to do specific things.

This is very unfortunate because there is much to be done this month. A colleague from Germany is here and we are working on a project together as well as writing a paper. It is a shame to bring him over here from Berlin and to collapse into a useless heap. Probably time to do MG’s energy shower technique again and hope that it works.

I published another post on the blog – the one about assets and liabilities:T. It is essentially about the need to distinguish between possessions, on the one hand, and assets and liabilities on the other. Starting to get many comments – regretfully a lot of the comments are from people who run ‘interesting’ websites and are playing the linking game. Someone asked me whether I have thought about putting more videos on the site which I thought is interesting. But when I clicked on the link loads of tasteless pornography assaulted my senses; so maybe I am not going to be putting videos after all:rotfl:.

Will write later; when I find some energy again.

Firewalker

Marru

Take your German colleague for a nice walk outside, head to a nice coffee shop and have a natter about anything and everything. I am sure you will find you va va voom as MG puts it.

Triciaxx

Firewalker wrote: »

I am sitting here and I am not able or willing to do anything – no writing, no thinking, no cleaning and organising the house. I am just feeling absolutely washed out with no energy at all. Am I ill? Or am I just really tired? It may be that Tim is right again by claiming that both interest and energy are cyclical – so we cannot hope to work or live full on all the time, or to be interested to do specific things.

I have no problem with the cyclic nature of interest and energy. There are rhythms and cycles throughout the universe and this could well be one of them. Biorhythms are one explanation. They are part of what skeptics label 'pseudoscience' but I am reminded of Arthur C Clarke's 3 laws of prediction:

1. When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right; when he states that something is impossible, he is probably wrong.

2. The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.

3. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

In 1999 he added a fourth law:

For every expert there is an equal and opposite expert.

I have found that, whenever I try to push past that washed out feeling, my work is not 1st class.

Thought for the day: Go with the flow, tomorrow is soon enough. :rotfl::rotfl:

PS Always remember you are human - your spirit can outstrip your body if you do not take care of your body. I find Vitamin B to be helpful in these circumstances.